How do I sort in Excel alphabetically?

[Guest]

Hi. I have a spreadsheet that deals mostly with text. I have a column that
has different cities listed in each cell. When I select that column and hit
the A-Z sort button, it is not working, even after I select the expand the
sort selection. Or sometimes it will sort everything BUT the first item.
Anyone else have this problem?
Thanks!

 

[Pete]

You should avoid using the sort buttons.

Instead, you should highlight the complete range that you want to sort
(CTRL_A will often get this okay), then use Data | Sort. You can now
specify which column to sort on (up to 3 columns) and whether to sort
in ascending or descending order. You can also specify if your range
begins with a header row - which will be the reason for everything but
the first item being sorted if you use the buttons.

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[RagDyeR]

I strongly advise against ever using those auto-sort toolbar buttons.

In fact, I have removed them from the machines of all my users at all my
locations, and have not received any more complaints of jumbled data due to
mis-sorting.
XL sorts correctly with those buttons most of the time, BUT ... *NOT* all of
the time, and one bad experience is more then enough.

Manually select the *entire* range that you wish to include in the sort and
then use,
<Data> <Sort>
And make sure that you specify whether or not you have a 'header' row, which
was your problem when you say that the first row wasn't included in the
sort.

--

Regards,

RD
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Hi. I have a spreadsheet that deals mostly with text. I have a column that
has different cities listed in each cell. When I select that column and hit
the A-Z sort button, it is not working, even after I select the expand the
sort selection. Or sometimes it will sort everything BUT the first item.
Anyone else have this problem?
Thanks!